Randomly selected Supreme Court

Or, let's scale back the war

When I was young, my friend and I used visit the local video rental to try and try to pick out a movie that we could both stand. On of us would pick out a movie and the other one would vote yes or no. Who am I kidding, the vote would always be no. I would show my friend a half a dozen of my movies and he would vote no. He would show me his movies and I would vote no.

This is very much the way the US picks judges for the Supreme Court. The stakes are too high to depend on good manners. So, everyone plays each round for keeps. I think that the high point (yes, I said the high point) was when Senate Republicans said (in a moment of polite honesty) that they had nothing against Merrick Garland, but they just were never going to confirm him.

We don't need to search for qualified candidates for the Supreme court. The states have done that for us. Their lists are their State Supreme Courts.

Ground Rules

Every year, pick a state at random by population (latest census), pick the middle juror from their State Supreme Court by sorting the court by ideology (not a difficult task) and picking the juror in the physical middle of the list. The new justice would replace the most senior member of the US Supreme Court.

In order for this work more smoothly, we need to enlarge the US Supreme court. I was thinking, at least seventeen (personal guess). The larger court may smooth out the random swings back and forth from replacing a justice every year.

Using ideology ratings from the website Ballotpedia, I have compiled a list of the middle justices of the State Supreme Courts of the states. The list is out of date, but it is the best data I have available. I have included it as an example of what justices we could expect. Where there is a separate criminal court, I have not included them in my selection. Enjoy